[A Conversation Between PM Kennedy and various MPs]

A Conversation Between PM Kennedy and various MPs
A group of New Liberal Ministers (Fritz Hollings, Sam Nunn, Howell Heflin, and Richard Shelby) arrive at 4 Victoria Street for a meeting with Prime Minister Kennedy. A butler leads them into the Prime Minister’s office, shutting the door behind them.
Kennedy: Ministers, what can I do for you?
Richard Shelby: Ted, we’re going to be frank with you. You’re too far left for us to align with anymore. We can not, in good confidence, stand for election as New Liberal Party Candidates.
TK: What!? You cannot be serious right now. Fritz?
Fritz Hollings: I’m sorry Ted. We need to cut the budget, and you’re adding to it. We need to do something about Hussein, and you’re not.
Sam Nunn: You want to allow gays in the military. I can’t support that, my constituency would kill me.
Howell Heflin: The only place you’re cutting the budget is the Defense Ministry. I was in World War II and...
TK: Damn it all! Get out! Get out of my office!
SN: We have others with us.
TK: How many?
SN: 15 backbenchers and a cabinet Member.
TK: Who!? Who’s the bastard?
The MPs leave Number 4 as the Prime Minister yells and begins calling Party Officials and his cabinet.

I cannot honestly say if an Prime Minister would call a Cabinet Minister a "bastard" but he would not call the "Ministers" as they arrived, he would address them by their first names.

[Main Characters from Jules Verne novels]

Main Characters from Jules Verne novels

United Kingdom
Phileas Fogg: Liberal Democrat (by virtue of his membership of the Reform Club)
Doctor Clawbonny: Liberal Democrat at Westminster, Scottish Nationalist at Holyrood
William Emery: Conservative
Colonel Everest: Liberal Democrat
Dr. Samuel Fergusson: Independent

United States
Captain Cyrus Smith: Republican
Impey Barbicane: Republican, then Independent

[Party Leaders, as of 1990:]

Party Leaders, as of 1990:

Edward Kennedy - New Liberal Party
- Prime Minister of the Confederation of America (1982-Present)
- Leader of the New Liberal Party (1979-Present)
- Member of the New Liberal Party (1982-Present)
- Member of the House of Commons for Charlestown-Boston (1975-Present)
- Member of the Progressive Party (-1982)
- Minister of State for Health, Cabinet of James Carter (1979-1982)
- Shadow Minister of State for Schools, Shadow Cabinet of Robert Byrd (1975-1979)
- Premier of Massachusetts (1967-1975)
- Member of the Massachusetts Legislative Assembly for Charlestown-Boston (1960-1967)

Ronald Reagan - Conservative Party
- Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition (1979-Present)
- Leader of the Conservative Party (1979-Present)
- Member of the Conservative Party (1950-Present)
- Member of the House of Commons for Hollywood-Los Angeles (1964-Present)
- Minister of Culture, Sports, and Media, Cabinet of Richard Nixon (1974-1979)
- Minister of State for Work and Pensions, Cabinet of Richard Nixon (1971-1974)
- Shadow Minister of State for Work and Pensions, Shadow Cabinet of Richard Nixon (1964-1971)
- Premier of California (1954-1964)
- Member of the Liberal-Labor Party (-1950)

Strom Thurmond - American Heritage Coalition
- Member of the American Heritage Coalition (1942-Present)
- Leader of the American Heritage Coalition (1971-Present)
- Member of the House of Commons for North Myrtle Beach (1968-Present)
- Deputy Leader of the American Heritage Coalition (1968-1971)
- Member of the House of Commons for Crescent Beach (1942-1968)
- Leader of the South Carolina American Heritage Coalition (1938-1942)
- Mayor of Crescent Beach (1933-1938)
- Member of the Liberal-Labor Party (-1942)

Ron Paul - Libertarian Revolution
- Member of the Libertarian Revolution (1983-Present)
- Leader of the Libertarian Revolution (1987-Present)
- Deputy Leader of the Libertarian Revolution (1976-1983)
- Member of Parliament for Galveston (1971-Present)
- Member of the Conservative Party (-1983)
- Shadow Minister of Health and Social Affair, Shadow Cabinet of Ronald Reagan (1979-1983)
- Minister of Trade, Industry and Business, Cabinet of Richard Nixon (1974-1979)

A tip on constituency names. In cases of ordinal points then it's the location followed by the ordinal point (for instance Aberdeen North, Belfast West, Bristol South). For districts it's the name of the area, comma, district (for instance: Lewisham, Deptford or Liverpool, Broadgreen). So the constituencies listed above would be:

Boston, Charlestown
Los Angeles, Hollywood
Myrtle Beach North
Galveston

In other words, how would the 1990 American Mid Term Elections come out if the US Congress was elected along Westminster lines?

The actual 1950 result was Lab 315 Con 288 Lib 9 Ind 1 and NI 12 where as this calculation says Con 321 Lab 316 Lib 4 NI 12 (so yes, it does help the Conservatives in the 1950 election, but we shall have to see about other elections)

Yes, sorry about the map. I was trying to have it full scale (but that means stitching pictures which I am not good at) but I am hoping that the data will be released in a future UK-Elect release

Just curious, but aren't networks required to wait until polls close on the West Coast, since that could affect  voting in semi-close states like Oregon, Washington? And It's such a sizable portion of the country still voting anyhow.

See the 1992 and 1996 elections

This is a map generated using data from the University of Sheffield and mapped using UK-Elect showing the 1950 general election on the boundaries used for the 1997 - 2005 parliaments. Please remember I am just the monkey, the organ grinder is the University of Sheffield who published this data in 2005 and have since taken the spreadsheet used to generate the map down.

The colours used are: Conservative Labour Liberal Ulster Unionist SDLP

Cool.  I will be in London that week for a business trip.  This way I can watch the results right there in UK. 

Six counties declare overnight, the remaining 22 declare the following day (Source: Press Association)

BBC Parliament will be showing Election 1979 on Saturday from 0900 BST until 0005 BST on Sunday, to which I say "I'm up for a tweeting session if anyone else is?"

[TRENDED]

Well, first of all, #Election83 TRENDED. In fact, it trended so much in the morning that the people who look after the explainations for trends asked me "Why is #Election83 trending?" and I replied "BBC Parliament is replaying the 1983 general election and people with an interest in the election are commenting on the results", on the downside though we started to get a heck of a lot of spam tweets at the same time.

As to the results (which I tried to tally in replay time but failed miserably), what appeared to have happened is that there was a small swing from Con to Lib (about 1%) but the real swing was from Lab to SDP (well over 8%) and it was that swing that Labour tried to get back over Elections 1987 and 1992 and it wasn't until Election 1997 that they could finally start to tackle the Con / Lab swing that would enable them to govern, so in hindsight the SDP are responsible for the Conservative governments of 1983, 1987 and 1992 (which I get from listening to the SDP founders was not what they were planning for)

Notional Election 1979 map

That's quite right. Election 55 was indeed the first to be televised (and it also saw the first appearance of the swingometer). It was just for Southampton Itchen and Test but everything has to start somewhere. So does this mean then that no one was to real time tweet the election then as it is being replayed? If not, that's a shame really.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Thatcher landslide, BBC Parliament will be replaying the 1983 general election on Easter Monday (April 1st 2013) from 10.00am. I happen to have the 1979 notional election on this computer and will be adding it into a suitable programme so that as the results are announced I can do forecasts of the final result and was wondering if anyone would be interested in taking over Twitter with an #Election83 hashtag for the day?

If so, may I ask who would like to comment for (please copy and paste and add your Twitter handles):

Conservatives
Labour
Liberal Alliance
Social Democratic Alliance
Plaid Cymru
Scottish National Party
Any of the Northern Ireland Parties

The first forecast will come after Guildford and then a forecast every 65 seats.

As we are now not having boundary changes here in the UK, may I ask how the procedure works in Canada (i.e is there a formal vote in Canada that says "Yes, these boundaries are in place for the next election?") and if so, when that vote takes place could someone do the maths to say "How similar is this new seat to the seat that it replaces?" like we had for the UK when say Ceredigion and North Pembroke was 100% of Ceredigion, 5% of Carmarthen East and 50% of Preseli Pembroke.

The permanent move to a 5 year cycle is annoying. Both Scotland and Wales had their scheduled 2015 elections moved forward to 2016 in order not to clash with the General Election under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. The following General Election will be in 2020, at which point Scotland and Wales should also be voting 4 years after the 2016 election but instead will now vote in 2021. So by default we've switched to a 5 year cycle despite the 1998 Acts saying we were to have a four year cycle.

Referendum time: "Should the Welsh Assembly have a four year term as defined in the Wales Devolution Act 1998 or a five year term?" with a similar question in Scotland.

[An end to the ban on candidates standing in both regional and constituency parts of the election]

(Source: ITV Wales News)

The Welsh Secretary has confirmed plans to push ahead with some major changes to the way the Assembly is elected, but David Jones has also confirmed that constituencies won't be redrawn following the collapse of similar plans for parliamentary boundaries.

The UK Government now intends to introduce the following changes:
A permanent move to five-year Assembly terms
An end to the ban on candidates standing in both regional and constituency parts of the election
A new ban to prevent Assembly members from simultaneously sitting as MPs

If this is passed then LeAnne Wood will have a lot to thank the Conservatives for

Has a date been announced for the special election and if so, may I ask Adam how I may get a copy of the 2012 Congressional Elections (I bought the Presidential Vote Tally from 1789 after the last elections in 2008)?

I wouldn't mind helping out if it is all too much for one person

I'm a little confused here (probably because I'm a limey). Kerry will resign as a senator this weekend, according to Fox News, and the governor appoints a replacement (which is the method that I have seen done so many times before) so why is there going to be a special election in mid June when on other occasions the governor has appointed someone and they serve until the next scheduled election?

As I am the person who started this thread, it only seems reasonable that I end it with my own thoughts and that is, the idea was I think quite sound. The UK has 650 seats for a population of about 60 million. If that is the standard number then India (with a population of 1.2 billion) would have a Parliament of some 13,000 MP's (it only has 500) and the US House and Senate (535 members) should have 2,665 members. And I myself would have been quite happy to see a Ceredigion seat delve into Northern Pembrokeshire (I was never that happy about the Carmarthenshire bits to be honest) but hey, ho, them's the breaks. Therefore, this seems as good a moment as any to lock the topic so that we can look back on it in five years time and say "I wonder if that Wakefield and the Calder Valey constituency is a goer now?"

Thanks for that Liam, that brings the tally up to 207 (108 to go)

As things stand I have no results from: Cleveland, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Greater Manchester, Hertfordshire, Humberside, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, South Wales, South Yorkshire, Warwickshire, West Mercia and West Yorkshire.

Then after that there are a couple of local results I am missing from some police force areas and then comes the tricky question of electorates.

Are those the direct or the list vote results?

Those are the constituency results in the Rhondda constituency.

Thank you very much indeed for those.

I've also seen  1 prefs results from Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Blackpool, Pendle, Wyre, South Ribble, Ribble Valley, Blackburn, Chorley, Stoke, Cannock Chase, Newcaslte under Lyme, Staffs Moorlands, South Staffordshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen, Caerphilly.

Do you need any of them?

YES PLEASE!!!

[Rhondda Assembly Election Results 1999 - 2011]

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has confirmed she is considering standing for the Rhondda constituency in the 2016 assembly elections.

(Source: BBC The Wales Report)

Rhondda Assembly Election Results 1999 - 2011
1997 General Election: Lab 74% Plaid 13% Lib Dem 6% Con 4% Referendum Party 2% Green 1%
1999 Assembly Election: Plaid 49% Lab 41% Lib Dem 5% Ind 3% Con 3%
2003 Assembly Election: Lab 62% Plaid 27% Ind 4% Lib Dem 3% UKIP 2% Con 2%
2007 Assembly Election: Lab 58% Plaid 30% Lib Dem 7% Con 5%
2011 Assembly Election: Lab 63% Plaid 30% Con 5% Lib Dem 2%

In order to gain Rhondda, Plaid need a swing of 16.83%. I believe that this swing is too much for Plaid and as a result believe that the Liberal Democrats will be able to take advantage of this and plan a double attack. Firstly in Ceredigion where Elin Jones is the Assembly Member but only has a majority of 1,777 (6.11%) and secondly on the Mid and West Wales regional list where Simon Thomas is top of the Plaid list and only requires a 0.8% swing from Plaid to remove him from the Assembly (thus at a stroke removing the leader of Plaid from the Assembly and the two people most able to take over in the event of LeAnne resigning)